Back to the future: Academic partnerships for healthy outcomes in elementary school children

Recognizing that a basic infrastructure was needed to support local school health programs, university nursing faculty and students collaborated with a rural local school district that employed only one school nurse for 6,000 students. A small grant from the regional Area Health Education Center sup ported the development of clinical sites in two schools. University faculty and students provided health services and professional consultation to the two elementary schools. Planning for a coordinated school health program b egan, along with lobbying for state support of new school nurse positions. Three major outcomes of the partnership were filled gaps in the school heal th program, legislation for school nurse positions, and recognition that fa culty needed to prepare new graduates for school nurse practice.